Olivier with a light in his hand, pale and
dreadfully agitated, and dripping with perspiration. He led the way
into her father's workshop, with an unsteady gait, and she followed
him. There lay her father with fixed staring eyes, his throat rattling
in the agonies of death. With a loud wail she threw herself upon him,
and then first noticed his bloody shirt. Olivier softly drew her away
and set to work to wash a wound in her father's left breast with a
traumatic balsam, and to bind it up. During this operation her father's
senses came back to him; his throat ceased to rattle; and he bent,
first upon her and then upon Olivier, a glance full of feeling, took
her hand, and placed it in Olivier's, fervently pressing them together.
She and Olivier both fell upon their knees beside her father's bed; he
raised himself up with a cry of agony, but at once sank back again, and
in a deep sigh breathed his last. Then they both gave way to their
grief and sorrow, and wept aloud.

Olivier related how during a walk, on which he had been commanded by
his master to attend him, the latter had been murdered in his presence,
and how through the greatest exertions he had carried the heavy man
home, whom he did not believe to have been fatally wounded.

When morning dawned the people of the house, who had heard the
lumbering noises, and the loud weeping and lamenting during the night,
came up and found them still kneeling in helpless trouble by her
father's corpse. An alarm was raised; the _Marechaussee_ made their way
into the house, and dragged off Olivier to prison as the murderer of
his master. Madelon added the most touching description of her beloved
Olivier's goodness, and steady industry, and faithfulness. He had
honoured his master highly, as though he had been his own father; and
the latter had fully reciprocated this affection, and had chosen
Brusson, in spite of his poverty, to be his son-in-law, since his skill
was equal to his faithfulness and the nobleness of his character. All
this the girl related with deep, true, heart-felt emotion; and she
concluded by saying that if Olivier had thrust his dagger into her
father's breast in her own presence she should take it for some
illusion caused by Satan, rather than believe that Olivier could be
capable of such a horrible wicked crime.

De Scuderi, most deeply moved by Madelon's unutterable sufferings, and
quite ready to regard poor Olivier as innocent, instituted inquiries,
and s